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Kahlil Gibran

84 quotes

“Let us disperse from our aloofness and serve the weak who made us strong, and cleanse the country in which we live. Let us teach this miserable nation to smile and rejoice with heaven's bounty and glory of life and freedom.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Khalil in Spirits Rebellious (1908) "Khalil The Heretic" Part 3
“The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran (1962) as translated by Anthony R. Ferris
“My enemy said to me, "Love your enemy." And I obeyed him and loved myself.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Handful of Sand on the Shore, as quoted in Alterquest: the Alternative Quest for Answers (2006) by Karen Fiala, p. 127
“The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man struggles to find life outside himself, unaware that the life he is seeking is within him.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kahlil Gibran, The Awakened Soul ISBN-10: 1864760818 (January 2001)
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Become a Conscious Creator: A Return to Self-Empowerment (2007) by Lisa Ford, p. 44
“For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks." Thus I became a madman. And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us. But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable. I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do — for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I go — as others already crucified have gone. And think not we are weary of crucifixion. For we must be crucified by larger and yet larger men, between greater earths and greater heavens.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O love, whose lordly hand Has bridled my desires, And raised my hunger and my thirst To dignity and pride, Let not the strong in me and the constant Eat the bread or drink the wine That tempt my weaker self. Let me rather starve, And let my heart parch with thirst, And let me die and perish, Ere I stretch my hand To a cup you did not fill, Or a bowl you did not bless.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have found the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This line was later paraphrased by John Lennon, in his song "Julia", on The Beatles (1968): "Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you, Julia.
“A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches; Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would be the least among men with dreams and the desire to fulfill them, rather than the greatest with no dreams and no desires.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My face and your faces shall not be masked; our hand shall hold neither sword nor sceptre, and our subjects shall love us in peace and shall not be in fear of us." Thus spoke Jesus, and unto all the kingdoms of the earth I was blinded, and unto all the cities of walls and towers; and it was in my heart to follow the Master to His kingdom.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see. I belonged to all men, and to none. They called me harlot, and a woman possessed of seven devils. I was cursed, and I was envied. But when His dawn-eyes looked into my eyes all the stars of my night faded away, and I became Miriam, only Miriam, a woman lost to the earth she had known, and finding herself in new places.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: "All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself." And then He walked away. But no other man ever walked the way He walked. Was it a breath born in my garden that moved to the east? Or was it a storm that would shake all things to their foundations? I knew not, but on that day the sunset of His eyes slew the dragon in me, and I became a woman, I became Miriam, Miriam of Mijdel.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He knew the depth of beauty, He was for ever surprised by its peace and its majesty; and He stood before the earth as the first man had stood before the first day. We whose senses have been dulled, we gaze in full daylight and yet we do not see. We would cup our ears, but we do not hear; and stretch forth our hands, but we do not touch. And though all the incense of Arabia is burned, we go our way and do not smell.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In truth we gaze but do not see, and hearken but do not hear; we eat and drink but do not taste. And there lies the difference between Jesus of Nazareth and ourselves. His senses were all continually made new, and the world to Him was always a new world.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many are the fools who say that Jesus stood in His own path and opposed Himself; that He knew not His own mind, and in the absence of that knowledge confounded Himself. Many indeed are the owls who know no song unlike their own hooting. You and I know the jugglers of words who would honor only a greater juggler, men who carry their heads in baskets to the market-place and sell them to the first bidder. We know the pygmies who abuse the sky-man. And we know what the weed would say of the oak tree and the cedar. I pity them that they cannot rise to the heights.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are the men who say, "He preached tenderness and kindliness and filial love, yet He would not heed His mother and His brothers when they sought Him in the streets of Jerusalem." They do not know that His mother and brothers in their loving fear would have had Him return to the bench of the carpenter, whereas He was opening our eyes to the dawn of a new day. His mother and His brothers would have had Him live in the shadow of death, but He Himself was challenging death upon yonder hill that He might live in our sleepless memory.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you not remember me, Nicodemus, who believed in naught but the laws and decrees and was in continual subjection to observances? And behold me now, a man who walks with life and laughs with the sun from the first moment it smiles upon the mountain until it yields itself to bed behind the hills.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He was gentle, like a man mindful of his own strength. In my dreams I beheld the kings of the earth standing in awe in His presence.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I admired Him as a man rather than as a leader. He preached something beyond my liking, perhaps beyond my reason. And I would have no man preach to me. I was taken by His voice and His gestures, not by the substance of His speech. He charmed me but never convinced me; for He was too vague, too distant and obscure to reach my mind. I have known other men like Him. They are never constant nor are they consistent. It is with eloquence not with principles that they hold your ear and your passing thought, but never the core of your heart.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are all sons and daughters of the Most High, but the Anointed One was His first-born, who dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and He walked among us and we beheld Him. All this I say that you may understand not only in the mind but rather in the spirit. The mind weighs and measures but it is the spirit that reaches the heart of life and embraces the secret; and the seed of the spirit is deathless. The wind may blow and then cease, and the sea shall swell and then weary, but the heart of life is a sphere quiet and serene, and the star that shines therein is fixed for evermore.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have pondered long, and I know now that only the pure of heart forgive the thirst that leads to dead waters. And only the sure of foot can give a hand to him who stumbles.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus loved me and I knew not why. And I loved Him because He quickened my spirit to heights beyond my stature, and to depths beyond my sounding. Love is a sacred mystery. To those who love, it remains forever wordless; But to those who do not love, it may be but a heartless jest.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love is a gracious host to his guests though to the unbidden his house is a mirage and a mockery. Now you would have me explain the miracles of Jesus. We are all the miraculous gesture of the moment; our Lord and Master was the centre of that moment. Yet it was not in His desire that His gestures be known.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would tell you more of Him, but how shall I? When love becomes vast love becomes wordless. And when memory is overladen it seeks the silent deep.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And now let us play our reeds together." And they played together. And their music smote heaven and earth, and a terror struck all living things. I heard the bellow of beasts and the hunger of the forest. And I heard the cry of lonely men, and the plaint of those who long for what they know not. I heard the sighing of the maiden for her lover, and the panting of the luckless hunter for his prey. And then there came peace into their music, and the heavens and the earth sang together. All this I saw in my dream, and all this I heard.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once again I say that with death Jesus conquered death, and rose from the grave a spirit and a power. And He walked in our solitude and visited the gardens of our passion. He lies not there in that cleft rock behind the stone. We who love Him beheld Him with these our eyes which He made to see; and we touched Him with these our hands which He taught to reach forth.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You hate Jesus because someone from the North Country said He was the Son of God. But you hate one another because each of you deems himself too great to be the brother of the next man.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You know not that the earth was given in marriage to the sun, and that earth it is who sends us forth to the mountain and the desert. There is a gulf that yawns between those who love Him and those who hate Him, between those who believe and those who do not believe. But when the years have bridged that gulf you shall know that He who lived in us is deathless, that He was the Son of God even as we are the children of God; that He was born of a virgin even as we are born of the husbandless earth.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Master, master singer, Master of words unspoken, Seven times was I born, and seven times have I died Since your last hasty visit and our brief welcome. And behold I live again, Remembering a day and a night among the hills, When your tide lifted us up.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source